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MOBILE and fixed-line telephone operators, the communications watchdog Icasa and the government all seem to be ignoring the plight of telecoms consumers.
Not even the Number Portability Company (NPC), which was supposed to protect the customer by enabling him or her to vote with their feet when they are not happy with the Telco services, seems concerned with service woes.
While the NPC is doing just fine, South African mobile and fixed-line telephone customers are generally not doing well, thanks to lack of genuine competition in the telecoms space.
Telco customers spend huge sums of money every time they make phone calls, send an SMS or buy data while they receive little or nothing from mobile and fixed-line telephone operators.
South Africa’s telcos - Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, to a lesser extent Telkom and Neotel – are ‘rewarding’ their customers through promotions that either give back cash or internet bundles.
However, these promotions are not always available to all South Africans.
For instance, if you are a Vodacom user you can’t enjoy MTN’s current promotion offering its customers R60 airtime, when they spend only R6 a day.
In short, it is still difficult to switch from one network to another in order to secure better deals.
The biggest stumbling block for customers who want to enjoy such promotions is the NPC, which was generally expected to reduce the cost of telephony in the country and improve choices.
You may ask, who cares about the NPC? The answer has to be the consumers, who find it difficult to switch networks while keeping their original numbers forever.
This type of porting is meant to encourage users to change service providers if they are not happy with the services they are receiving. In short, porting has been used globally as an enabler of competition in the telecoms environment.
In South Africa porting has been inadvertently used to defend market share of telcos.
In many instances, customers have opted to acquire three or four SIM cards in order to enjoy benefits of promotions offered by different mobile phone operators.
NPC – which is hardly known to the public – was founded in July 2006 and later provided consumers with the ability to retain their phone numbers.
Not surprisingly, the NPC – which acts as a type of automated clearing bureau of cellular and fixed-line phone numbers – is owned jointly by Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, Telkom and Neotel, each of which owns 20% and has board seats.
Since November 2006 to end May 2014 about 2.2 million mobile numbers have been successfully ported, according to the NPC website. There are about 64 million cellphone users in South Africa.
Is the sluggish uptake of number porting an indication that customers are happy with their network operators?
Not really.
The hands of the majority of subscribers are tied and those who have voted with their feet have found the porting process time consuming, difficult and frustrating.
What if porting was easy and simple in South Africa, like sending an SMS and your number has been ported?
In Ghana, you can port using SMS and within a few seconds you will have switched to the network of your choice.
My cousin did that when he was in Ghana. Why is this type of speedy porting not possible in sophisticated country like South Africa?
Number porting is not good business for SA telcos
Clearly this can only mean that number porting is not a good business case for local telcos.
When Icasa agreed to establish the NPC it was the right thing to do, but things have changed in the local telecoms industry.
I think the time has come for Icasa to change the regulations that govern the NPC.
The NPC needs to be freed from the telcos and its ownership must be neutral, either owned by the state or a private firm.
The current NPC has no ambition to challenge the mobile and fixed-line operators to push their prices lower and offer customers new and innovative products and services, plus improved quality and greater choice.
It is owned by the telcos, so how could it bite the hands that feed it?
However, number portability is not just a simple issue like mobile termination rates. It addresses the wallets of the operators and they will resist any process that serve to lower their profits.
But operators will also put forward a lousy argument that the South African market is dominated by prepaid users, who place little weight on keeping their numbers for life.
For now South African telcos customers - who are serviced by a compromised porting company - are not in a position to negotiate better deals with their service providers.
- Fin24
*Gugu Lourie is a former correspondent for Thomson Reuters, Business Report, Finweek magazine and Fin24 (writing a blog titled 'Googled'). He is the editor of techfinancials.co.za. Views expressed are his own. Follow him on #twitter @LourieGugu
Not even the Number Portability Company (NPC), which was supposed to protect the customer by enabling him or her to vote with their feet when they are not happy with the Telco services, seems concerned with service woes.
While the NPC is doing just fine, South African mobile and fixed-line telephone customers are generally not doing well, thanks to lack of genuine competition in the telecoms space.
Telco customers spend huge sums of money every time they make phone calls, send an SMS or buy data while they receive little or nothing from mobile and fixed-line telephone operators.
South Africa’s telcos - Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, to a lesser extent Telkom and Neotel – are ‘rewarding’ their customers through promotions that either give back cash or internet bundles.
However, these promotions are not always available to all South Africans.
For instance, if you are a Vodacom user you can’t enjoy MTN’s current promotion offering its customers R60 airtime, when they spend only R6 a day.
In short, it is still difficult to switch from one network to another in order to secure better deals.
The biggest stumbling block for customers who want to enjoy such promotions is the NPC, which was generally expected to reduce the cost of telephony in the country and improve choices.
You may ask, who cares about the NPC? The answer has to be the consumers, who find it difficult to switch networks while keeping their original numbers forever.
This type of porting is meant to encourage users to change service providers if they are not happy with the services they are receiving. In short, porting has been used globally as an enabler of competition in the telecoms environment.
In South Africa porting has been inadvertently used to defend market share of telcos.
In many instances, customers have opted to acquire three or four SIM cards in order to enjoy benefits of promotions offered by different mobile phone operators.
NPC – which is hardly known to the public – was founded in July 2006 and later provided consumers with the ability to retain their phone numbers.
Not surprisingly, the NPC – which acts as a type of automated clearing bureau of cellular and fixed-line phone numbers – is owned jointly by Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, Telkom and Neotel, each of which owns 20% and has board seats.
Since November 2006 to end May 2014 about 2.2 million mobile numbers have been successfully ported, according to the NPC website. There are about 64 million cellphone users in South Africa.
Is the sluggish uptake of number porting an indication that customers are happy with their network operators?
Not really.
The hands of the majority of subscribers are tied and those who have voted with their feet have found the porting process time consuming, difficult and frustrating.
What if porting was easy and simple in South Africa, like sending an SMS and your number has been ported?
In Ghana, you can port using SMS and within a few seconds you will have switched to the network of your choice.
My cousin did that when he was in Ghana. Why is this type of speedy porting not possible in sophisticated country like South Africa?
Number porting is not good business for SA telcos
Clearly this can only mean that number porting is not a good business case for local telcos.
When Icasa agreed to establish the NPC it was the right thing to do, but things have changed in the local telecoms industry.
I think the time has come for Icasa to change the regulations that govern the NPC.
The NPC needs to be freed from the telcos and its ownership must be neutral, either owned by the state or a private firm.
The current NPC has no ambition to challenge the mobile and fixed-line operators to push their prices lower and offer customers new and innovative products and services, plus improved quality and greater choice.
It is owned by the telcos, so how could it bite the hands that feed it?
However, number portability is not just a simple issue like mobile termination rates. It addresses the wallets of the operators and they will resist any process that serve to lower their profits.
But operators will also put forward a lousy argument that the South African market is dominated by prepaid users, who place little weight on keeping their numbers for life.
For now South African telcos customers - who are serviced by a compromised porting company - are not in a position to negotiate better deals with their service providers.
- Fin24
*Gugu Lourie is a former correspondent for Thomson Reuters, Business Report, Finweek magazine and Fin24 (writing a blog titled 'Googled'). He is the editor of techfinancials.co.za. Views expressed are his own. Follow him on #twitter @LourieGugu
